"Conjunctions"

The name of this church has been changed for my blog post. In no way do I intend to cause harm.  This is me sharing my family's experience...

Freshly out of the gate after the painful departure of our church home, our family ventured to "Conjunctions Church." (CJX)  A big plus for this one is that it's located very close to home.

Still used to Saturday night church and sleeping in on Sunday, we enjoyed the luxury of the 11 am service.  Upon arrival at the renovated gym (Not a gymnasium, a work-out gym!  It's pretty cool! ), we checked our younger 3 children in at the desk. Our elementary girls were delivered to one room, and our preschooler to his.  

Our middle school dude went up into a balcony-like area (I can picture elliptical machines up there!) for the worship music part of the service and then to a small group where they studied a passage from the Bible.  He enjoyed this.

They had free "gourmet" coffee, juice, and water to drink during the service which was really nice.

Instead of the normal "take a moment and greet some people around you"-time, the pastor put message-related questions up on the screen and asked everyone to gather into groups of 4 or 5 to discuss them.  This put us out of our comfort zone, but it was a good thing because you can actually get to know something about the people around you.  (I tend to remember weird details rather than peoples' names!)

We enjoyed familiar music, a relaxed atmosphere, and a relevant, Bible-centered message.  The kids all enjoyed their classes.  Although, the girls told us that their lesson was on video.

So, we went back 2 weeks later for another try... From the sermon, we left with the impression that the church was more loosey-goosey/less fundamental than we need for our family.  The main thing is that Christ died for our sins and was raised again. Check.  BUT we understood the pastor to say that the Bible is open for interpretation and the other stuff isn't important... It's not AS important, BUT there is a lot of stuff in God's word that we need to follow for our own good because He loves us.  We can't just ignore it.

Following that, our 5th grader came out of church all pouty and refusing to talk about what she had learned.  We finally got out of her hours later that she had a disagreement with her teacher about salvation. 

When we weighed in on that 2nd visit, we saw that they were clear signs that CJX is NOT the place for us; however, having not ever met or spoken with the pastor, we really don't know where they stand.  He seems like a really nice guy, but he was not easily accessible for us to meet him either time we visited.

Disappointed and moving on...